Learning Portuguese the way everyone else learns English

This week we got a new Portuguese teacher, which I was quite happy about (normal teacher rotation).  Our original teacher Adonis spoke excellent English.  He studied English Literature at University, spent time in the States, etc.  It was useful at the beginning when he was explaining grammar and stuff to us, but towards the end it was a bit annoying because he liked to talk (a lot) and he would often go off into an explanation or story about something to do with Brazil in English which was very interesting but not particularly useful for our oral Portuguese comprehension skills.

This week, our new teacher was Clarissa.  She speaks next to no English.  This was a little challenging at first, but it's helping me understand spoken Portuguese a hell of a lot better.  It's still difficult if she's teaching a new grammar rule or a new piece of vocabulary, because some things can't be explained easily - but then again, that's what dictionaries are for.

The other two English students in the class (my mother and another lady from Cambridge) are having more difficulty keeping up than the rest of us.  My mother complained that it was a big jump from someone who speaks excellent English to someone who speaks none.

However, as the rest of the students (all non-native English speakers) in the class pointed out, this is the way they learned English.  They didn't even have the first two weeks of someone speaking in their language to ease them in - they were straight in at the deep end.  This is how English is taught to foreigners when they come to English-speaking countries.  Basically, "we can't be bothered to speak your language, and if you want to learn ours, you're gonna have to do it the hard way".

Sounds harsh, but this approach works.  All the non-native English speakers in the school who have learnt English in an English-speaking country speak/read/write it quite well, because they had to.  They had to for economic reasons, they had to because their English teacher wouldn't cut them a break, and now they're learning another language.

I'm personally inclined not to complain.  And besides, the tough approach is doing me the world of good.

Portuguese so far

Our Portuguese school - 'Fast Forward'

Ok, yeah, the grammar can be a bit finicky - I'm not used to conjugating verbs etc, but it's not horrific.  After a few times you get it - I can conjugate 'to go' off the top of my head right now:
Eu vou
Ele/Ela/Voce vai
Nos vamos
Eles/Elas/Voces vao

Once you know the order of conjugation you just go through the list in your head - there's only four conjugations, even for irregular verbs (so far, anyway - maybe I'll have to eat my words later).

But listen, people: I studied German in secondary school, OK?  GERMAN.  There are 16 different ways of saying 'the' in German.  I'm not kidding.  So thus far, for me, Portuguese is a breeze.

The main problem I'm having is forcing myself to use Portuguese in real life situations.  Although I understand the grammar and I've gained a fair amount of vocabulary in my lessons, my brain freezes up when I actually need to use the language.  It's getting better, I'm talking in bits, but I've yet to vocalise an entire sentence without a bit of help outside of the classroom.  Considering I've only done 4 days of 4-hour classes, I think I'm doing alright.

At least I'm not as bad as my Mum: we were walking down Avenida Paulista yesterday evening with the dog, my Mum asked me "how do you say 'I don't speak Portuguese' again?" "You say 'Eu nao fala Portugues'," I replied.  "Ok, got it," she said.  About 30 seconds later, while waiting for the lights to change at a crossing, someone asked her in Portuguese for what sounded like directions and she immediately responded "Je ne parlais Francais".  We both burst into a fit of giggles.